the Twins did not get “robbed”. Young, Harris, and Pridie were outplayed by Garza and Bartlett this year, but not by that much overall.

It was a win-win trade for both clubs when it happened. They needed starting pitching and a solid defensive presence up the middle of their infield. They also needed to get rid of their young egotistical right fielder who was becoming a clubhouse cancer.

We needed a power right handed hitter.

Now, I wasn’t a big fan of Young this year, and I still think he needs to go back to right field, but he is young and he does look like eventually hit for the power that we all expect – even if he did hit like a big pussy this season. If so, and if our young rotation solidifies with another year of experience it will still be a win-win situation.

Garza had a great year, but Bartlett wasn’t that special at the plate. Better than who we had, maybe, but we’re still years away from knowing who actually did get the better of this deal. For 2008, the Rays won—solely because of Garza. But five years from now, when Bartlett may or may not be playing, Delmon Young is in his prime and Deolis Guerra is just starting to make a name for himself, things might be very different.

Let’s say Garza goes on and is an integral part of the Rays’ post-season success en route to a World Series. I think that’s fantastic, but we won’t know whether he could have played that role for us or not. Different team, different circumstances, different past. If this were Star Trek we could see what happened in an alternate timeline, but sadly, there is no Lt. Cmdr. Data.

Garza stunk in April and was not very damn good in September. He was the No. 5 winner on the Rays’ staff.

I remain unconvinced that a near 25-year-old with a 19-22 career record a 2-1 SO/BB ratio is anything special.

He got past the fifth inning in one of his last 5 regular-season starts and was the only Rays’ starter to lose – he got blasted – to the Sox in the post-season. But he pitched poorly on the road this season, so he didn’t break out of his habit there.

You don’t judge a trade on one year, and to compare this to the AJ trade is a joke.

Bartlett. The guy has been hurt frequently during his pro career. We have likely seen the best of him. And the best was mediocre.

Considering Harris is “just a platoon player at third base,” he played more games than Bartlett, had basically the same PAs, more doubles, more triples, more home runs, more RBI, more RS, more walks and a higher OPS+.

So, in essence, the man the Tampa sports writers laughingly voted as the Rays’ MVP has a worse season than “just a platoon player.”

1. No one in baseball judges a trade based on 300-some days.

2. Picking and choosing a 30-day scoreless period for Garza isn’t going to erase his mediocre career performance.

3. Again, Harris had a more productive season than Bartlett, and played as much.

4. From June 8 to July 7 the Rays played better than .650 baseball, in fact, they played far above their overall season percentage. No wilt.

5. Don’t really care what the Giants’ fans you “worked with” (what the hell does that mean?) thought of a trade. There is no qualification for being a fan, who cares what a random group of fans thought of the trade at the time? In fact, it just illustrates my point: don’t judge a trade too early.

6. Other than you deciding there’s some parallel here, how Trade A turned out has no bearing on how Trade B will turn out.

Why not choose the Doyle Alexander-John Smoltz trade as an example? No one knew after Smoltz’ inaugural season if the Braves got screwed or now.

How about John Smiley-Denny Neagle? Smiley won 16 games and pitched 241 innings for the Twins in ’92 (Radke never pitched 240; Santana? Nope.) and Neagle had three-straight losing seasons with abysmal ERAs – particularly bad for a non-DH league, no less. But 6 years down the road you could tell the Pirates came out on top in that deal, and not only did the Pirates then parlay Denny into Jason Schmidt, when their careers were over Neagle and Smiley were essentially the same pitcher – except both of them did the bulk of their work, and their best work, in jerseys that did not read “Twins.”

it makes me wish for the return of Batgirl where you could post thoughts and not have your head beaten in by their baseball knowledge.

5. Don’t really care what the Giants’ fans you "worked with" (what the hell does that mean?) thought of a trade. “what the hell does that mean?” well it would mean co-workers of mine who are huge Giants fans. Why would it mean anything else?

these moments are pretty rare but sometimes people here are too smart for their own good. Feel free to respond if you want, but I’m done, sorry I brought it up.

Maybe this site should have a test you have to pass before you are allowed to post.